System.Version input format

[Maximys]

Hello everybody.
On my PC installed some .NET SDK versions:
.NET SDKs installed: 7.0.203 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk] 7.0.300-preview.23179.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk] 8.0.100-preview.1.23115.2 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
(part from output "dotnet --info")
and "dotnet --version" returns me:
8.0.100-preview.1.23115.2
I expect, that this output should be valid value for System.Version, but when I try to execute:

Version version;
version = Version.Parse("8.0.100-preview.1.23115.2");

.NET Runtime code throw ArgumentException by this line.
Can anybody explain me why it's happend and how I can get .NET version in correct format?

[Joe4evr]

how I can get .NET version in correct format?

Not with System.Version, that is. System.Version only supports a 4-number format, and as you can plainly see, .NET uses a variation of SemVer, which is 3 numbers + optional suffix.

If you want it to be a strong type, you can create your own to parse, or perhaps find a package that defines and parses a SemVer version like this. But really, why do you need that?

[Maximys]

Just for example, I want to build xunit from source and I run "./build" for than. Build script call build.ps1 which contain this line::
$version = [Version]$(& dotnet --version)
and my build fails with Exception.
Yes, I can temporally hardcode .NET version, but Version class from Java contains qualifier property for "preview.1.23115.2" and I think, .NET\C# should have the same.
Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 have next text in Summary:

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards compatible manner
PATCH version when you make backwards compatible bug fixes
Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.

What do you think?

[svick]

Related issues: #15868, #19317.

[Maximys]

Thank you so much for info.